TfP 



ON THE PRESENT SITUATION, FINANCIAL AND 
POLITICAL, OF- THE KINGDOM OF PORTUGAL. 



TO-DAY. 



BY 

J. G. BE BARROS E CUNHA. 




ON THE PEESENT SITUATION, FINANCIAL AND 
POLITICAL, OF THE KINGDOM OF POETUGAL. 



^^^^^^ 



TO-DAY. 



'J 0* 



J: G. DE BARROS E CUNHA. 



LONDON: 

W. H. COLLINGRIDGE, 117 to 120, ALDERSGATE STREET, E.G. 

1868. 
Price Sixpence. 



LONDON : 
PRINTED BT W. H. COLLINGRIDGE, 
ALDERSGATE STREET, E.C. 



887270 
•29 



PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. 



This little work was first published in Lisbon, under the title of 
" Hoje," on the 17th August last, and within a fortnight after 
its appearance no less than 20,000 copies were sold. Such a 
reception seems to justify its author in the belief that a trans- 
lation may be interesting to a class, however limited, of 
English readers, who will be entitled to regard it as a real 
expression of the national mind in Portugal, of which chance 
has chosen him as the interpreter. The prosperity and in- 
dependence of Portugal, he ventures to suggest, are a subject 
of more than local interest. Throughout Europe there is in 
progress a silent contest between two forces ; the one tending 
towards autocratic governments and ultramontanism, the other 
towards constitutional governments and religious toleration. 
To no country can this contest be a matter of indifference. 
Portugal, like England, has"long been, and still is, on the side 
of civil and religious liberty. Treaties, extending over more 
than two centuries, and the invincible lines of Torres Vedras, 
still exist to show how England has valued her alliance with 
Portugal, and has known how to turn it to account in times of 
European trouble. 

The reader will bear in mind that the original of the 
pamphlet he has now in hand was published before the out- 
break of the still recent revolution in Spain ; an event which 
might have seemed to promise a better understanding on the 

a 2 



iv 



PREFACE. 



part of the two nations occupying the Peninsula, During the 
Bourbon dynasty nothing could exist between them except 
moral, if not material, antagonism ; and if the Spanish press 
is any criterion, how can we doubt but that the same aggres- 
sive spirit still survives, when the people of Portugal are called 
upon to read such language as this : " Just as Italy is incom- 
plete without Home, so is Spain incomplete without Portugal. 
Italy began her great work sooner than Spain, but perhaps 
Spain will arrive first at the conclusion " ? In truth, the plans 
and the prospects of Spain are known to nobody ; they can 
only be surmised as events go on. But this is certain, that a 
people may upset a dynasty, and launch into existence a new 
constitution, without effecting any change in its own deep- 
seated character. Herein lies the difference between the 
Spaniard and the Portuguese ; herein lies the reason why a 
fusion of the two countries would probably endanger the 
liberal cause at present firmly established in Portugal, while it 
would almost certainly fail to secure it by the experiment of 
an United Iberia. 

Note. — The whole of the translator's performance has heen examined hy 
Senhor J. G. de Barros e Cunha, and has received his sanction. 



TO-DAY. 



"VENIT NOX QUANDO NEMO POTEST OPERARI." 



I. 

Not now, not in the hour that sees Portugal at last 
awaken from her long and careless slumber, can it 
avail to pursue the political retrospections, the old 
recriminations and personal discussions, in which we 
have so fruitlessly passed the calm period of freedom 
that we have enjoyed amid European agitations. 
The moment is serious, far too serious, for aught that 
bears not directly upon our future. 

I do not believe that there have been any minis- 
tries since 1851 that have not aimed at doing all the 
good in their power to the nation. 

Some brought into practice the maxim of political 
toleration. 

Others introduced railroads, and developed enor- 
mously the means of communication within the 
country. 

Others broke the last links of the old feudal fet- 
ters which yet enchained the land, and which had 
escaped, much against the Emperor's (a) will, the 
daring hand of Monzinho da Silveira (b). 



6 



If the people have not known how to profit by 
their franchises and political rights ; if the great im- 
provements in our system of internal communication 
have cost us too dear ; if no perceptible results have 
yet followed disinfeudation, this is not the fault of 
the enlightened minds which conceived those reforms 
and enterprises, contended for them, and carried them 
into execution. 

The people have not cared to make use of their 
political liberties except with an eye to local advan- 
tages, or when influenced by the solicitations of 
ignorant agitators. 

The cost of the railways, in which should be com- 
prehended bad workmanship and ill-chosen plans, 
however great it may be, is not greater than all other 
countries have had to pay as the price of their 
apprenticeship ; a price which governments as well 
as individuals always do pay to speculators and 
charlatans. 

From the inexperience of the people in employing 
and turning to account their rights of political inves- 
tigation and action, from the inexperience of govern- 
ment in the construction of roads and railways, 
proceeds the condition in which we now find our- 
selves, and the largeness of the debt that weighs upon 
us ; and though perhaps future results may prove that 
we have not paid over-dearly for our lesson, yet it is 
certain that hitherto we have only been preyed upon 
by unprincipled demagogues and unscrupulous con- 
tractors, who have been playing into each other's 
hands in a way that seems incredible. 

Statesmen of both parties have uttered their 
financial dogmas under the false notion that the 
State has resources in itself, other than those 



7 



furnished by each citizen through the channel of 
taxation. 

Thence sprang the school that took for its device, 
" The people can pay, and ought to pay, more." In 
opposition to this, another school immediately arose 
with the motto, "The people might pay, and ought 
to pay, less." 

The first of these schools was arbitrary and 
audacious ; the second timid and irresolute. 

While lavishly distributing roads and bridges with 
a view to local influences, and so as to acquire for 
the supporters of their policy the venal popularity of 
provincial towns and hamlets, the different govern- 
ments still kept adjourning the votes of supply 
equivalent to the cost of these local improvements, 
for fear of displeasing the idols they themselves had 
created, and also in order to preserve the prestige of 
the political pretorians who sustained the Ministerial 
cause in the electoral colleges. 

Disinclined to endanger their popularity by im- 
posing taxes, and not taking courage to speak the 
truth to the country, they had recourse to borrowing 
on credit. 

As it was the State that was contracting loans, as 
it was the State that would have to pay them, 
nobody troubled himself about the matter. 

The loans, however, followed one after another, 
until at present we have to pay, besides the inscribed 
charge which they brought upon us (and which is 
the price of the many improvements we possess), the 
charge in addition of a floating debt to which re- 
course has been had to meet the current expenses. 

By this convenient, easy, and popular process, we 
have contrived to raise the interest of the public debt 



8 



to eight thousand contos of reis (about £ 1,7 50,000), 
equal to more than half the income of the State ; 
and we have accomplished a deficit which, according 
to the best calculations, will this year amount to 
seven thousand contos of reis (about <£1,550,000\ 

Let not the nation delude itself. These seven 
thousand contos of reis cannot be found in the 
promised economies. They must be met by means of 
taxation. They must be met, because the national 
honour demands it. 

Economy there may be, but economy of itself will 
not suffice. There may be important economies, but 
they will not stop the growth of the deficit; and 
every year which passes without effectuating them 
adds to the deficit the interest corresponding to 
the new amount of floating debt whence the means 
are sought to balance the difference between what 
the people pay and what the same people spend. 

The unanimous voice of the nation calling for 
economies is just; but the promise of saving the 
finances by their result is fallacious, ignorant, 
senseless. 

It was the difficulty of this financial situation that 
suspended during several days the formation of the 
Cabinet which came into power in place of that 
of the 4th of January. It was the precarious 
state of the public treasury that incited the aspira- 
tions of Spain, and those home intrigues which see 
in the agony of our country the opportunity for 
realising the old scheme of forming an united Iberia. 

It has ever been the practice of this country and 
this people, rocked in the cradle of the great glories 
of the past, to smile with disdain at every menace 
of Spanish conquest or dominion. 



9 



There is no conceivable hypothesis that can dis- 
concert the vain-glory of these fire-eaters on the 
subject of national independence. 

Some quote Camoens, others Aljubarrota and 
the wooden Shovel (c), others Montes-Claros (d), 
others the popular ballads, in which 6ne Portuguese 
is always equal to ten Spaniards. 

Ridiculous bravados, only suited to the silly vanity 
and presumption of a degenerate and unthinking 
people ! 

One is reminded of the capture of Pekin when 
one listens to such boasters, who, if they were left to 
themselves, would probably behave like the man- 
darins of the Celestial Empire, when they placed 
painted lions before the enemy : they would form 
their lines of defence with stanzas from the " Lusiad " 
in capital letters, with engravings from the edition 
of the Morgado Mattheus, and the rusty old sword 
of D. Joao I. It is true that in Lisbon, as in Pekin, 
the invasion would be announced by the arrival of the 
invaders ; but then the tranquillity of the country 
would not have been disturbed up to the last 
moment, nor the national susceptibility pained by the 
faintest doubt of ancestral glories and traditions. 

I confess I would give more for rifled cannon 
than for all the future Knights of Aviz (e), when 
it comes to the defence of our frontiers ; I would 
rather have one squadron of cavalry mounted on good 
horses than two shovels of Aljubarrota, even if it were 
possible to resuscitate Anna Brites ; and I suspect 
that needle guns would be found to be more con- 
vincing than the strophes of Camoens himself. 

But on this, as on some other subjects, I have the 
misfortune to differ from many statesmen of this 



10 



country, from the whole of the middle class, and the 
majority of the people. 

Modern history tells me what conceited and self- 
confident patriotism was worth, when Portuguese 
Royalty, while yet in the national waters, saw our 
own cannon p'ointed by French hands against the 
stern of the vessel that bore, humiliated and covered 
with shame, the crown of D. Alfonso Henriques (f). 

History tells me again in what fashion the national 
pride and point of honour were vindicated when, but 
a few years ago, under the very windows of our 
public offices, and directly in front of the statue of 
D. Jose I., the eagles of France were allowed to 
swoop down upon a slave-ship reclaimed by the 
Imperial Government, after having been condemned 
in the name of civilisation and humanity by a Portu- 
guese tribunal (g). 

I regret that my adherence to history obliges me 
to be altogether at variance with the enthusiasm and 
confidence of my fellow-countrymen ; but this is no 
hour for the flattering of vanity. 

The Spanish press has been treating of the manner 
in which the invasion and conquest of Portugal might 
be achieved. The plan published in the Spanish 
journals, and thence copied into the Portuguese jour- 
nals, is so familiar to the public that I need not do 
more than refer to it. 

The shock of surprise which this plan gave to 
the whole country is but the repetition of what 
has invariably occurred in all our contentions with 
Spain. 

Yet we ought to have considered ourselves warned, 
after the declarations made by the'Conde de Lavradio, 
in the Chamber of Peers, and by the Visconde de 



11 



Soveral, in a published letter — that within the supreme 
laboratories of European politics the absorption of our 
nationality was actually under consideration. 

The Visconde de Soveral inquired, openly and dis- 
tinctly, of S r - Casal Ribeiro, then Minister of Foreign 
Affairs, if he had been relieved of the duties of Envoy 
to the Court of Madrid on account of his refusal to 
become the docile instrument of a policy intended to 
erase the name of Portugal from the list of nations. 

This ought to have been enough to cause Parlia- 
ment to occupy itself with the subject, — to cause the 
press to take it in hand until it had been thoroughly 
sifted, — to cause the whole country not to rest a single 
night, lest the morning should find it with its wrists 
manacled and its nationality lost. 

But no one would take notice. 

And now we wonder to see the storm over our heads. 

The opposite party, well knowing the indolent and 
credulous spirit of the populace^ is employing religious 
fanaticism to spread dissension in neighbourhoods and 
in families ; is counselling resistance to all authority, 
disobedience to the laws of the kingdom ; and, while 
diplomacy is assisting at the secrets of the plot which 
designs to destroy us, by striking at the heart of our 
national being, the bigotry of some, and the insane 
levity of others, by demoralising the people, under- 
mine and shake the very foundations of the realm. 

II. 

I think it has been fully shown that there exists a 
powerful conspiracy, engaged in darkness, in weaving 
for us the fate which has overtaken so many small 
nationalities within the last few years. 



12 



Those who contribute most of all to strengthen 
this intrigue are ourselves. 

Everything that can condemn a people to be sub- 
ect to guardianship and tutelage converges against us. 

We are prodigal. 

We are presumptuous and disorderly. 
We are negligent in the defence of our frontiers. 
We are incapable of benefiting by the great freedom 
we enjoy. 

We are reactionary and fanatical; for, in direct 
opposition to the laws, we permit and encourage the 
re-establishment of monastic orders. 

We have a strong neighbour who has need of us, 
in order to become a power of the first rank, and for 
whom we are a Naboth's vineyard. 

And, worse by far, we have, among our own 
brothers, among the sons of this country, active 
agents who invite the foreigner to his spoil. 

We have an annual deficit equal to half of our 
income. 

We have a public debt, which swallows more than 
half of that income. 

We have had a refusal on the part of the people 
to pay taxes. 

And we have a parcel of men, bereft of reason, 
rousing and inflaming the most dangerous passions, 
for the purpose of turning them to their own account. 

We have no fortifications. 

No artillery. 

No cavalry that can charge. 
No infantry that can march. 
No arms made upon modern principles. 
No soldiers that know how to use the arms they 
have. 



13 



No national militia. 
No navy. 
No colonies. 
No allies. 

I know beforehand that I shall be accused of 
indiscretion and haste by the very men who, in the 
press and in Parliament, in meetings and in public 
places, have written and spoken, bit by bit, exactly 
what I have here said all at once. 

The things that they themselves, professedly the 
competent and acknowledged authorities, have uttered 
and printed are in existence for their own use and 
inspection. Let us do justice to Europe, in supposing 
that it neither hears nor reads them. 

To deny or to conceal facts which are to be found 
in the official registers, and which are within the 
reach of everybody, merely to keep the country in 
ignorance of that which it is of the utmost importance 
it should know, would be to act like the doctor who 
prolongs the malady to make a fortune by his patient. 

The crisis is grave. It is not alone a financial or 
an economical crisis ; it is a national crisis. 

To surmount it is difficult, very difficult ; but it is 
not impossible. 

It is the people, ever deceived, yet ever ready to 
redeem, by the sacrifice of their little all, the financial 
mal-administration of the classes which ought to 
know better, and to retrieve with their blood the 
negligence or the crimes of those put over them ; — it 
is the people, I say, who must take the first step, 
which is to resume the authority conferred upon them 
by the fundamental law of the State, and to exercise 
it for the benefit of their country and of themselves, 
instead of resigning it at the feet of administrations 



14 



without ideas, of perverse factions, or to the call of 
the miserable interests of individuals. 



III. 

The defence of Portugal, since we can now no 
longer doubt its necessity, must obviously proceed 
side by side with the reorganization of our finances 
and administration. I would first say a few words on 
the condition of our armaments. 

Although, since the surveys made in 1810, high- 
ways and railroads have introduced a new element 
into the movement of the troops that would have to 
defend Portugal, and new facilities for their con- 
centration, yet, in all that bears upon the physical 
structure of the kingdom, it is certain that the general 
plan then arrived at cannot be greatly modified now. 

Then, as now, the Alemtejo was considered to be 
the weakest part of our line of defence; and the 
railway, which ought to have passed between Fort de 
Graga and Elvas, does not pass there. On the con- 
trary, the station is at the distance of three kilometres 
from Elvas; and Fort de Graga can only bring to 
bear upon the line an oblique and very uncertain fire. 

Even if the works of engineering art were more 
expensive than they are, this part of the line ought 
never to have been allowed exemption from all the 
rules and requirements of defence necessary for the 
safety of the kingdom. 

Where we were careless, the Spaniards were well- 
advised and cautious. 

As though to give us a lesson, they made their 
railway between the frontier and the Guadiana follow 



15 



the left bank of the river, and describe two curves in 
inverse directions, in order to pass between the fort of 
San Christobal and the opposite redoubt. In this 
manner, not only does the line lie between two fires, 
but, on leaving the station, it would be completely 
swept for a distance of four kilometres by the artillery 
of the fort. 

"All this shows how much afraid the Spaniards 
are of us !" will be the comment of the redoubtable 
gentlemen who go about puffing patriotism. 

Our improvidence left the eastern railway, right up 
to our capital, open to Spain, who, with the means 
that she possesses of concentrating important forces 
upon Almeida on one side, and upon Elvas on the 
other, is in a position to threaten, at the same moment, 
Lisbon and Oporto, the two cities the occupation of 
which would decide the fate of the country. 

Some authorities have judged it sufficient to fortify 
Lisbon and Oporto, leaving the frontiers open. Others 
maintain that the line of fortifications between Evora 
and Portalegre ought to be completed, Almeida re- 
stored, and the ground disputed inch by inch up to 
the lines of Torres Vedras. 

Neither of these plans can be carried out with a 
hundred contos of reis (£22,200). Either all that is 
passing before our eyes is a dream, or the hundred 
contos asked by Government for the fortifications 
are meant to assure us that no fortifications are 
wanted. 

As for the organisation of the army, arguments 
would be superfluous. The influence that superior 
weapons and more skilled tactics have on the inter- 
national affairs of Europe has been demonstrated by 
facts in the Danish question, and in the simplification 
of the political geography of Germany. 



16 



What Chassepot rifles can do against the most tried 
and the most heroic patriotism France taught all of 
us at Mentana. For where Garibaldi's volunteers 
lost, no volunteers on earth could win. 

It is the army that will have to shed the first blood ; 
that will be offered as the first sacrifice to the dignity 
and independence of our country. It must be armed, 
organised, equipped, and instructed, in order to possess 
that confidence in itself which is the earliest and most 
efficacious step towards victory. 

To arm volunteers, as England did, teach and dis- 
cipline them ; establish prizes for the best rifle-shooting; 
prepare the nation at large to defend its property, 
liberty, and life ; — all this ought to be done, but done 
on a well-considered system, possible and practicable, 
that the sacrifices called for may not be more burden- 
some than can be helped, and besides burdensome, 
useless. 

All this is only to be done by money. 

All this is only to be done by taxation ; for retrench- 
ments, however great, cannot possibly furnish the 
amount needed. 

Some have said that our existence as a nation de- 
pends upon the arbitrary will of the great powers. 
This is an error. 

The great powers cannot be every day setting in 
movement their fleets and armies, to take part in 
contentions that for them have no interest. This 
reasonable policy decided England to adopt with re- 
gard to the domestic questions of the Continent the 
principle of non-intervention. 

Thus did Italy and Germany clip the power of the 
Apostolic Empire, and arrange their frontiers with 
France. But the case of Portugal is different. Por- 



17 



tugal now is not only an important basis of military 
operations in the event of a Continental war ; she is 
a country wherein reign the freest institutions, and 
the most practically liberal and thoroughly tolerant 
government. She is the bulwark of Europe's freedom 
in the Peninsula. 

Whatever may have been the mistakes and short- 
comings of our men, no one can deny that the Portu- 
guese race is, by virtue of its institutions, the natural 
ally of all free nations. 

The fanatical policy of Spain, and the unfortunately 
wavering policy of the French Empire, have pretended 
to describe and decry us as being a colony of England. 
This assertion also is the reverse of truth. 

We are less of an English colony than Spain, who, 
with all her arrogance, consents to bear in Gibraltar 
(Spanish ground) a brand of vassalage and humili- 
ation. 

Portugal is linked to England by those commercial 
relations which naturally foster amity between coun- 
tries whose different geographical positions make 
them the producers of dissimilar merchandise. 

Now, what does Spain want ? 

To break off our trade with Great Britain ? 

Of course that would be an excellent thiug for her, 
because she would get rid of her most powerful com- 
petitor in the agricultural industry of her southern 
provinces, and would secure a resigned customer for 
her manufactures. 

But Spain does not seriously advance that argument. 
She cannot altogether ignore statistics. 

The following is the account of our dealings with 
perfidious Albion during the past year, 1867 : — 

B 



18 



1867 

EXPORTATION FROM PORTUGAL TO ENGLAND. 





Declared Real Value. 


Description of Merchandise. 




In Reis. In £ Sterling. 



dom. 


Wine 


4,248,000 5 


£000 


944,000 


Iron and Copper Pyrites 


2,209,500 5 


£000 


491,000 


be 










a 




936,000 5 


& 000 


208,000 




Oil and Oil-Seeds 


567,000$ 


&000 


126,000 


o 


Oranges and Lemons. . . . 


445,500 5 


£000 


99,000 


a> 




504,000 5 


sooo 


112,000 


.3 

*-+^ 

S3 
O 




icq rvflfl < 

loo,UUU 5 






Q 




2,263,500 5 


£000 


503,000 






11,326,5005 


&000 


2,517,000 






1,656,000 5 


&000 


368,000 


|f 














144,000 5 


§000 


32,000 


02 
M l 












Total 


13,126,500$ 


$000 


2,9*17,000 



Exportation in excess on the side of 



19 



1867 

IMPOETATION FEOM ENGLAND TO POETUGAL. 







Declared Eeal Value. 




D6scription of J\£6rcli£i.n.cLis6. 










In Reis. 




In £ Sterling. 


r 

& 

o 


Cotton Piece Goods .... 


4,680,000$ 


5 000 


1,040,000 


Iron 


675,000$ 


5 000 


150,000 






.s 

M 


"Woollen Piece Goods .... 


630,000$ 


5 000 


140,000 






562,000 $ 


5 000 


125,000 










360,000 $ 
225,000$ 


5 000 


80,000 


■s 




5 000 


50,000 


Dntine 


Foreign and Colonial. . . . 


1,665,000$ 


5 000 


370,000 


D 




1,867,500$ 


5 000 


415,000 






10,664,500$ 


000 


2,370,000 




Azores 


622,000$ 


000 


138,000 


lands 




400,500 $ 


000 


89,000 


^ I 




157,500$ 


000 


35,000 




Total 


11,844,500$ 


000 


2,632,000 



Portugal, Reis, 1,282,000 flS000=£285,000. 



B 2 



20 



Our dependence upon England consists, then, in her 
buying the greater part of our produce ; and in this 
way Spain, too, is her dependent, and so is France : 
nay, if the mere fact of mutually exchanging com- 
modities is to constitute us a colony of England, what 
is France, who has made a special treaty with her for 
that purpose ? 

What does Spain offer Portugal that should tempt 
us to accept the much-talked-of Iberian Union ? 

She would snatch Portugal from the claws of the 
British Lion. 

Let her sweep her own house first ; and when the 
last Englishman has left Gibraltar, we will listen to 
her lessons on the subject of national dignity. 

Does she offer us her constitution ? 

Is there in the whole world a more barbarous rule 
than that to which Spain is subjected ? and can the 
constitution which permits it be compared to ours ? 

Or peace and security in our homes ? 

Security, which means banishment without a trial ; 
means the virulence and ferocity of a persecution that 
spares neither private virtue nor public services, neither 
rank, nor sex, nor age. 

Can she give us a dynasty and a court more re- 
respected or more respectable than our own ? 

If so, why can she not suppress the irritation and 
discontent of her people ? Why is her government 
flung from sword to sword, till the sceptre of her 
Queen becomes the plaything of the barracks ? 

Or will she bring us her credit, to raise the European 
market for the bonds of our national debt ? 

What is the price, and what the credit of the 
Spanish funds ? 



21 



Or will she introduce among us her system of tax- 
ation, to extinguish our deficit ? 

Can there be any taxes more onerous, worse dis- 
tributed, levied in a more oppressive manner, than 
those of Spain? Is there any nation that pays a 
heavier tribute, or where the fiscal exactions are more 
vexatious, and the expectations of civilized life less 
consulted ? 

Spain possesses politically nothing that can invite 
a people orderly like ours, with the guarantees of our 
laws, and the tolerance of our manners, to make com- 
mon cause with her. 

Spain suffers from the same evils that we do, only 
in a far more aggravated form ; because that which 
with us is but an element of disorder, an obstacle and 
interruption to the progressive course of administra- 
tion, is with her the normal and recognised system 
of government. 

But Spain does possess the brute force which has 
been found requisite to prop a tottering throne, and 
to annihilate civil, political, and religious liberty. 

And it is this force which she proposes to send 
across our frontier, to rescue us from the tutelage 
and predominance of Great Britain. 

Very well. Then against force, force. 

Let us organise ourselves, and it will not be a 
Spanish army that will come here with impunity to 
conquer us. But the whole nation must look to 
itself, and that at once, if it cares to remain free and 
independent. 

The policy of Spain is the policy of France, 
because the Imperial Government has it very close 
at heart to prevent the dominion of democracy, and 



22 



also to prevent that of the Orleans family. Neither 
would be at all convenient to the existing dynasty. 

Is it not, perhaps, the Imperial Government that 
inspires and animates Spain, when Spain comes for- 
ward to save us from England ? 

Was it England who, failing in the respect due to 
our tribunals, came into the Tagus to insult us, and 
impose upon us a war contribution to compensate 
her slave-traders ? 

Was it England who, a little while ago, according 
to the declaration made by Senhor Canto, late 
Minister of Public Works, interfered to support the 
demands of a railway company ? 

No ! England does not do these things, because 
in England public opinion reigns, and not a personal 
government. 

And it is that public opinion which is the true ally 
of Portugal, because it is the ally of all freedom, and 
the enemy of every tyranny. 

England will be with us if we know how seriously 
to accept our mission, if we are capable of compre- 
hending the part reserved to us, and if we can prove 
ourselves worthy of the consideration and respect of 
Europe. She will only abandon us when, like 
Poland, we show ourselves incapable of directing our 
own destinies. 

The rumours that Portugal is destined to be torn 
in pieces, like the deer hunted in the forest, by 
England herself have been set afloat for the purpose 
of sapping the nation's energy, by taking away all 
hope of any help. 

These rumours are unfounded, and it is much to 
be regretted that our ministers lately have not 



23 



followed the example of tlie Duke of Louie, who, in 
1861, when the Siecle was employing the pen of its 
editor, M. Leon Plee, on the Iberian union and the 
dismemberment of Portugal, caused it to be answered 
in our ministerial paper, and put an end to the dis- 
cussion. 

It is not impossible that, had certain questions 
which have recently been discussed in the foreign 
press been met in the same manner, Portugal would 
not now be finding so much indifference, both abroad 
and at home ; but, instead of combating such in- 
sidious manoeuvres, our statesmen and diplomatists 
alike seem to pride themselves upon helping to 
distress and disconcert the public mind. 

The organisation of our finances is the other 
point to be considered in the situation of our country. 

The great Turenne pronounced that for making- 
war three things were necessary- 
First. Money. 
Secondly. Money. 
Thirdly. Money. 

Upon that occasion the Marshal was speaking of 
offensive warfare ; and his dictum has, it is true, its 
comforting side, when we look at the state of the 
Spanish treasury. But then, neither can a war of 
defence be carried on for nothing. 

Organising the finances includes simplifying the 
public service without compromising its efficiency, 
reforming the civil administration, developing every 
sort of progress that may contribute to make the 
industries of the country improve and prosper. 

On finance, as on administration, there are two 
theories of political economists for us to consult. 



24 



In finance, one will recommend direct, the other 
indirect taxation, 

In civil administration, one will be for centralising 
every thing, the other for making dependent upon 
the State only so much as must necessarily be di- 
rected and modified by the laws which apply equally 
to the whole country. 

Administrative decentralisation is calculated to pro- 
duce, along with a healthy sense of responsibility, 
energy and self-reliance in the different localities ; con- 
stitutional life throughout the kingdom; fairness in 
the assessment of the taxes ; simplification of much 
of the public service now dependent upon the Home 
Office; economy for all— for the individual and for 
the State. 

Municipalities that desire to retain their charters 
must provide for all the local expenditure. 

They must pay the schoolmasters, the magistrates, 
and the clergy ; and they must make the roads, not 
for the profit and convenience of presidents of muni- 
cipal boards, but in harmony with the general re- 
quirements of traffic. 

The municipality ought, then, to enjoy, throughout 
its own jurisdiction, and in conformity with the com- 
mon laws, full and complete freedom of action, while 
full and complete responsibility should likewise be 
required of it. 

If, built upon this basis, the administrative reform, 
which the country claims as a vital necessity, does 
not produce the most advantageous results, why then 
the distance that separates us from Spain is not so 
great as I supposed. 

I cannot quit this subject without saying a few 



25 



words on a power which has been, in great part, the 
cause of the insane agitations that have lately dis- 
turbed the public peace ; a power which tends more 
than anything else to do away with all proper respect 
for authority. It is the power of the bureaucracy. 
Always greedy to get put into w 7 ell-paid and easy 
places, certain public officers, who ought to be giving 
their services in return for their salaries, only busy 
themselves in thwarting the Government, and setting 
the very immoral example of insulting, w T hen they 
cannot control, the authorities of the State. 

And yet it appears that no Cabinet hitherto has 
been able to govern without the support of the repre- 
sentatives of this power. 

It is upon these people that the pruning-knife of 
retrenchment should first be used. 

If those who live upon the treasury had work 
enough to do in their own departments, they would 
not have time for conspiracies and for agitating the 
mob in public places. 

Gratuities and presents are incompatible with the 
circumstances of the treasury. 

The right road to take in taxation is this. 

The taxes will admit of being augmented in many 
parts of the kingdom, which visibly do not pay what 
they ought to pay to the State. 

But a year ago, when, in the latest administrative 
reform, the preservation of different districts and 
councils of the kingdom was under discussion, there 
was not one district threatened that did not imme- 
diately come forward armed with statistical docu- 
ments to prove that it was richer than its neighbour. 

Between the districts of Braga and that of Vianna 
the competition was quite edifying. 



26 



Braga (h) had its traditions, its archbishop, its 
cathedral, its aristocracy, its agriculture, its religious 
pre-eminence, its looms and manufactories, — every- 
thing that could be required to constitute an import- 
ant centre of provincial civilization. 

In Vianna there was the importation and the ex- 
portation; the fishery in the Minho, described as 
another Pactolus ; a land of richness and fertility so 
great that it deserved to be an independent kingdom. 

Within the councils themselves it was the same, 
and in the parishes the struggle was more curious 
still ; it was a downright parochial regatta. 

Each seat in the parochial council was disputed 
like the throne of Macedonia, by the very persons 
who afterwards assailed the law of civil administra- 
tion with abuse ; while for the place of magistrate of 
a civil parish, both for the honour it would confer, 
and the no small profit, those who clamoured most 
loudly for economy fought with more heat and pas- 
sion than if it had been the Monthyon prize. (i) 

But there comes a whisper of taxation, and 
straightway all these riches are turned into poverty, 
registers burnt, collectors persecuted, offices pillaged ; 
and all the cheats and sharpers lighting their torches 
to make an auto-da-fe of the documents that sub- 
jected them to the operation of the law -of the 
land. 

Against those who receive what they ought not to 
receive, and those who do not pay what they ought to 
pay, let the Government put the laws into execution ; 
that is all. 

External safety, internal order, and the national 
credit, depend in the first instance upon these simple 
measures. Either enforce them or retire. 



27 



The picture is a sad one, yet it is but too near the 
truth ; if, indeed, it be not the very truth. 

IV. 

Two terrible spectres, then, are assuming shape 
in our horizon. 
Political ruin. 
Financial ruin. 

It is beneath these two threats that the Govern- 
ment, be it what it may, will have to direct the yet 
living forces of the nation. 

If the people must be called upon for self-devotion 
and patriotism, it is only by the exercise of the most 
perfect good faith and the greatest energy that the 
government can, in the interests of liberty, save us 
from the consequences of all the timid compromises, 
all the political artifices, all the financial expedients, 
all the economical errors, all the public and private 
jobbery, which have deluded the country, sophisticated 
its institutions, altered the dogmas and relaxed the 
discipline of the generous but too credulous Liberal 
party. 

In the first place, how is it possible for us to 
possess the respect of other nations while we find 
ourselves in such a position that we cannot defend 
our own frontiers ? 

In the second, how can we expect to obtain the 
confidence of foreign capitalists while we give no 
such proof of our resources as would at once disarm 
the imputations raised against our good faith by the 
press, in the cause of a Railway Company which 
notoriously has failed in performing its own engage- 
ments towards us I 



28 



To show that we are capable of maintaining our 
political credit, and of surmounting our financial 
difficulties by our own resources, is the first duty of 
Government, and perhaps its only duty. 



If this little pamphlet had been intended to explain 
the doctrine of a party, or that of a political clique, 
the points on which it does but touch would have 
been more thoroughly developed. 

But it was not so intended. 

It is but the expression of my own thought ; no 
more. 

I cannot comprehend the utility of artificial cliques 
for the fabrication of Cabinets ; but every day I have 
more faith in the power of natural parties to organize 
governments in harmony with their own principles. 

But these parties exist, not because they retain 
within them certain individuals, but because they 
follow certain ideas, and hold up to the light of day 
certain definite doctrines. 

It was to heal the canker and the weakness of 
the Liberal party, by uniting the two groups, Pro- 
gressiva and Megenerador, into which it was divided, 
that the coalition was proposed and realised three 
years ago. 

Even yet I am proud to have signed that compact, 
which, while it appeared to triumph, every one 
claimed the glory of having initiated, and of which 
every one rejects the responsibility now that it is 
utterly broken and dissolved. 

In political parties, as in religions^ faith is indis- 



29 

pensable ; and living faith may bind men to an idea, 
but never subordinate them to an individual. 

In artificial cliques, the infallibility of the chief is 
strong enough to subordinate the followers who live 
and grow under the shade of his power ; but in 
natural parties this is impossible, because the im- 
mortality of an universal idea cannot be imprisoned 
within the limits of a coterie. 

The Liberal party has definite dogmas, which, by the 
pliability of statesmanship, may be eluded for the 
interests of the moment ; but it is this laxity which, 
doubling the strictness of the more earnest, gives 
birth to schism and to corruption of principle, of 
which they afterwards mutually accuse each other. 

Liberal governments ought to be watchful guar- 
dians of the dogmas of the party they represent, as 
priests are of religion. 

When they hesitate and doubt, they must not be 
surprised if they find themselves abandoned and iso- 
lated like the leper, or swallowed up like Abiram. 

To govern is not to turn flexibly at the will of the 
wind, nor to use the days of a sterile existence for 
the convenience and pleasure of partisans. 

Neither is to govern to resist, as some casuists 
pretend. 

To govern by appealing to passions, and by the 
favour of the adverse party, is to enthrone anarchy 
and corruption. 

To govern by obstinate resistance is the immobility 
by which M. Guizot transferred from sovereignty 
to exile one of the most enlightened kings that 
France ever had. 

To govern is to call forth, to direct, and turn to 



30 

account all the activity and resources of a nation, 
according to the principles of the political and econo- 
mical school to which the Ministry belongs, and that 
without reference to the day which must summon it 
to resign. 

He who, from motives of personal ambition and 
vanity, enters a Cabinet with the idea of trimming 
among all the blunders and defects, both of his own 
followers and of the Opposition, will deservedly dis- 
appear like a shadow between the ridicule of his rise 
and the ridicule of his fall. 

But he who, upheld by a noble purpose, enters a 
Cabinet to maintain the principles of the great Liberal 
party will have indeed to encounter the attacks of 
the Opposition, will have to live in an anxious and 
incessant warfare; but when he falls, it will be to 
rise again, like Antaeus, with fresh power and energy : 
for Liberty, no less than Earth, renews within her 
bosom the strength that her sons have lost in the 
battle of the giants which she calls them to sustain. 



NOTES. 



A. (Page 5.) 

The Portuguese usually speak of D. Pedro IY, as the Emperor. 
He was proclaimed Emperor of Brazil during the lifetime of 
of his father, D. Joao VI., by whom the independence of 
Brazil was recognized in 1825. In the same year D. Joao VI. 
died, and D. Pedro IV. succeeded to the throne of Portugal. 
Two months later he abdicated in favour of his daughter, D. 
Maria II., then about seven years old, whom he betrothed to 
his brother, D. Miguel ; but D. Miguel refused to marry his 
niece, and, in 1828, usurped the crown of Portugal. In 1831 
the Emperor abdicated the throne of Brazil in favour of his 
son, then a child, and in 1832 landed in Oporto, and ultimately 
succeeded in asserting the title of his daughter to the throne 
of Portugal. 

B. (Page 5.) 

In the same year (1832), by an act of dictatorship, Monzinho 
da Silveira, the Emperor's minister, abolished, in the name of 
D. Maria II., the government tithe levied upon all agricul- 
tural produce ; the commendas, another old feudal tax, levied 
upon certain estates, and due originally to the crown, but 
which had, in most cases, been ceded to associations or to 
individuals ; and the direitos banaes, or rights of toll on certain 
roads and bridges, likewise mostly held by private persons, 
or by convents and other corporations. These changes came 
into operation on the final overthrow and expulsion of D. 
Miguel, in 1833. 



32 



C. (Page 9.) 

On the 14th of August, 1385, there was a great battle at 
Aljubarrota, between the Portuguese, commanded by Dom 
Joao I., who had before been the Master of Aviz, and the 
Castilians, whose king, D. Juan I. of Castile, was a claimant 
for the crown of Portugal. It was as a thank-offering for the 
victory that the Portuguese gained that the beautiful church 
and monastery of Batalha were founded, by order of their 
king, who lies buried there. Old tales relate that in this 
battle a baker's wife, of Aljubarrota, by name Anna Brites, 
armed with her wooden shovel (or peel, as it is termed in Eng- 
land), slew a great number of Spaniards, in proof of which 
the memorable shovel is still preserved in the sacristy of 
Batalha. 

D. (Page 9.) 

Montes-Claros is a small village in Estremadura, where, in 
June, 1667, the Portuguese army, commanded by the Marquis 
of Marialva, obtained a victory over the Spanish army, led by 
General Caracena. 

E. (Page 9.) 

The order of Aviz is the highest military order of Portugal. 

F. (Page 10.) 

D. Alfonso Henriques was the founder, in 1139, of the in- 
dependence of Portugal, and the first Icing of the Portuguese, 
for such was the proper form, then quite unusual, of the title 
he assumed. The passage refers to the flight to Brazil, in 
1807, of the Queen, D. Maria I., then mad, and of her son the 
Prince Regent, afterwards D. Joao VI. 

GL (Page 10.) 

The transaction here alluded to, which occurred in the Tagus, 
in 1858, excited much indignation in Portugal, and a long 
discussion in both houses of the English Parliament. The 
circumstances, as described on 8th March, 1859, by Mr. 



33 



Kinglake in the House of Commons, and, on the same day 
by Lord Wodehouse in the House of Lords, were as follows : 
A French vessel, called the Charles et Georges, having an 
imperial delegate on board, had been freighted by the French 
Government for the purpose of obtaining Negro workmen from 
the Mozambique coast, where there is a Portuguese settlement, 
and carrying them to be employed as labourers in the French 
Island of Bourbon, or Reunion. The vessel first arrived in 
Conducia Bay, Mozambique, in November, 1857. Negroes 
were taken on board, some of them with their hands tied, as 
if contrary to their own will. The vessel was thereupon de- 
nounced by the British Consul, seized by the Portuguese 
authorities, and condemned by a Portuguese commission. In 
August, 1858, the vessel was brought into the Tagus by a 
prize crew ; her release was immediately and peremptorily 
demanded by the French minister at Lisbon, on the ground 
that the presence of the imperial delegate was evidence of the 
legality of the business in which she was engaged, and there- 
fore that there was no warrant for seizing her. The Portu- 
guese Government, appealing to certain treaties, and to the 
close relations of the two countries for more than two hundred 
years, applied for the advice and assistance of the British 
Government ; several communications and suggestions fol- 
lowed, which led to no diplomatic result. In October, two 
French ships of war were sent to the Tagus, and, in the pre- 
sence of superior force, the Portuguese Government had no 
alternative but to surrender the Charles et Georges, paying 
a fine for her detention ; and that vessel, accompanied by the 
two ships of war, sailed from Lisbon on 26th October, 1858. 
The attempted charge in the Houses of Parliament, of the 
party in opposition, against the Ministry, failed on the ground, 
first, that a casus foederis had not arisen, and next, that there 
was some doubt if the act of seizure had not taken place 
beyond the conventional distance of three miles from shore, 
when the ship was not in Portuguese waters ; or, if she was, 
had been driven there by a Portuguese sloop of war. 

C 



34 



H. (Page 26.) 

Braga. Tliere are in Portugal three great centres of ultra- 
montanism, viz : — 

Torres Vedras, where there are already a convent of Jesuits 
in Barro, and one of Pranciscans in Varatojo, two small 
villages close to Torres. 

Covilhan, where also there are convents of Jesuits. 

And Braga, where everything is Jesuitical and fanatical. 

There is great reason to believe that the money which lately 
appeared in the provincial popular agitations, and in the 
tumults in Lisbon, and that which was found in the hands of 
the chief of a revolutionary association in Lisbon, was sup- 
plied by these fanatical agents of Spain and Pome, to be used 
against the Liberals. 

I. (Page 26.) 

Monthyon Prize, an expression frequently used in Portugal 
to denote anything uncommonly well worth having. These 
prizes, which are in the gift of the Academie Prangaise and 
the Academie des Sciences, were founded in 1782, by the 
Baron de Monthyon, who devoted the greater part of his large 
fortune to that purpose. 



Printed by W. H. Collingridge, Aldersgate Street, Loudon, E.C. 



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